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My Squirrel, the Activist

What’s the difference between an Activist and my favourite squirrel? Not a lot. He’s certainly extraordinarily active, he has fearsomely sharp teeth, he’s a bit of a bully and he’s amazingly persistent. He will go on and on and on until he gets through to the peanuts, or he has completely wrecked the feeder.

I’m afraid my squirrel also has many other traits in common with activists. I’m not just referring to the LGBT etc. activists who make it regularly on to blogs like mine, thus getting me labelled homophobic. (Name calling is one thing my squirrel can’t do). He is utterly convinced he is right and he is in the right. No argument! He views with suspicion anything bigger than a blue tit, but I assume, given the speed with which he chases away all other birds, that he is also secretly afraid. Finally he can be down right vicious, especially to other squirrels.

I suppose, unlike grey squirrels, which were imported from America, activists have always been around, but recently they’ve refined their tactics so effectively that we’re all afraid of them—and not without good reason.

A consultant at a Sheffield Hospital objected to a surgeon who was preparing to operate while wearing the hijab despite the strict dress code in an operating theatre. Like my squirrel seeing off the birds the Muslim surgeon stayed; it was the consultant who was suspended.

Here’s another story of kinky sex surveys, this time in a civilised country town, Andover, in New Hampshire, US. Undergraduates from the local university “administered” a survey that asked questions like the following:

One thing’s for sure—they can’t have the explicit sex education that we give to 7-year-olds over here or they wouldn’t need the terminology explained.

This happened during a break during the school day, unsupervised by school staff, unknown by parents and administered with bribes in the shape of cookies and cake.

Further questions included:

Just in case you’ve forgotten let me remind you this is a survey of children! That last question worried some lawyers. Although the survey is supposedly anonymous the children were asked so many personal questions, such as first and middle initials, date of birth and grades, it will be only too easy to identify individuals in the future. Answer ‘Yes’ to questions 22 and 23 and you could be in trouble a few years down the line.

I’m not suggesting that the students conducting the survey were squirrels but I do suspect that it was Activists who put them up to it.

There is one big difference with my squirrel—he’s got a great sense of humour! His one saving grace is that he enjoys a joke and will show off for me because he knows I like a good laugh too. And that’s one of the big problems with activists of all sorts. They take themselves so hideously seriously. If they could only lighten up a little, beaming with joy occasionally, not being so hideously self-righteous, they would be so much easier to cope with. If they did that they might also find that although we don’t take ourselves so desperately seriously we can, in fact, debate intelligently, quietly, tolerantly and cheerfully in a way that is fruitful and productive and gets somewhere.

I’ve said before I am quite certain God has a sense of humour. Nor would Jesus have been asked to nearly so many parties if He’d been an arrogant, self-centred tub-thumper with no shred of humour. He loved good conversation, amusing stories, funny jokes and a good glass of wine. He could certainly teach Activists a thing or two.